


drained of all of my secrets

by gratuitously1d



Category: One Direction (Band), X Factor RPF
Genre: Agoraphobia, Angst, Community: 1dangstmeme, Gen, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-28
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 22:25:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gratuitously1d/pseuds/gratuitously1d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry rolls over and the red digits of the hotel alarm clock burn into his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drained of all of my secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: [](http://accrues.livejournal.com/profile)[**accrues**](http://accrues.livejournal.com/)
> 
> For 1dangstmeme [prompt](http://1dangstmeme.livejournal.com/996.html?thread=195812#t195812): agoraphobic!harry styles because the world is a big scary place and it's a reasonable response to want to climb into bed and hide from it forever.
> 
> Title comes from a quote by Harry in this interview: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFRZgnPjzMk> (3:37) Yeah I like to angst up canon.

Harry rolls over and the red digits of the hotel alarm clock burn into his eyes.

4:12am.

He shuts them tightly, putting his hand over his eyes as if he can shut out the world. When he looks again the colon flashes at him insistently, reminding him of each moment of sleep lost. 

He is alone – in the single. He requested it because he said he was feeling crappy and he didn’t want the rest of them to catch it. It’s not a lie. He is feeling crappy but he doesn’t think this is something they can catch. In any case, he’d rather quarantine himself than infect the rest of them with his negativity. 

Harry knows that he’s lucky. He’s living a life that he could have only dreamed of; being a singer in a successful band and seeing the world with his friends. Most of the time it’s crazy – in the best way. He can’t tell what new things might come up, where he might be and it’s just amazing. Harry never wants to take it for granted.

It’s a lot to handle and it’s hard work, but he doesn’t want to say it like that because he doesn’t want to come off as being ungrateful about the opportunities he’s been given - they’ve all been given. All the other boys seem to be able to take it in stride, and Harry doesn’t want to be the weakest link. He doesn’t want to let anyone down especially his best friends who have worked so hard.

Sometimes it feels like too much. The weight of the world feels too much. He’s tired and they’ve been traveling nonstop, doing up to two shows a day, and he’s just exhausted. When they step out of the plane, there are people waiting for him. When he gets to the hotel, people are already there. He wonders if this is how Niall feels when he’s in crowds, pressed in like he’s about to drown in a sea of people. And when Harry’s at the hotel, there are people serenading them and he waves because he’s grateful, enormously flattered. These are the people that will follow them wherever they go, travel for them, camp out and wait in the cold for a glimpse of them - how can he not be grateful for that?

He hates the little part of himself that resents the fans when he’s walking down a street or lining up for a coffee in the morning and he just needs a break, just a few minutes to himself. He hates the paparazzi most of all. Some of them yell rude things at him just to get a reaction and he knows that, but just walking down the street is hard. It’s walking a gauntlet. Unfortunately, some fans can be like the paps and it can be hard to tell which is which. He knows that the fans love him but they’re calling out his name and he doesn’t know who to look it. They’re screaming in his face with their cameras flashing and it’s scary and sometimes he wants to hide. Instead he puts his best smile on his face and gets ready to do some signings and photos and hopes that it’s not obvious that he wants to run away.

Fans tweet him all the time saying dirty, funny, sad things. Sometimes they tell him about their sexual fantasies and that gives him a laugh. Sometimes they tell him funny things that remind them of him and that makes him smile. Sometimes they tell him that they think he will never know them, that he will never read the tweets and it makes him feel like he’s not enough. He knows that’s not what they saying but its true isn’t it? There are so many tweets and only so many he can read, even less that he can reply to. It’s not enough. He knows. He’s tried. He failed.

During the X-factor, Louis found him staying up trying to scroll through all of his mentions, agonizing over the ones that he couldn’t answer because he couldn’t possibly answer everything. Louis bundled him up, put the laptop under the bed and pulled into bed and held him until he fell asleep. Louis is a good friend like that. (And if Harry woke up but pretended to be asleep a little longer, that’s a secret between him and his pillow.)

Even if it’s all about how much people love the band, he just feels like people take and take and take and he doesn’t have enough of himself to give. Sometimes it feels as if the interviewers, and especially the fans, know him better than he knows himself. They will remind him of what he’s said. He feels so privileged that people will bury and memorise the answers that he gives like they’ve watched the interview a hundred times or something. Some of them say they have and he smiles and cringes a bit inside because surely there are better uses for their time? Should he have said something more meaningful then? Maybe he should have thought over what he said more…

The more he thinks about it, the harder it is to come up with an answer and his answers become shorter and it’s even worse when he watches that. He’s glad that there are four other boys in the band that can pick up the slack when that happens and he hates that it feels like he’s the youngest and most inexperienced one.

With all this focus on him, he knows it’s a responsibility too. He doesn’t want to call it a burden, he doesn’t. He knows he’s going to fuck up. Eventually. It’s just going to happen. There isn’t any way of avoiding it and he’s scared that when he does it’ll be big and it’ll be irreversible. He tries to keep such thoughts at bay, tries so hard not to let it affect him.

He wonders too who it is that people know. They know him but they don’t really know him. Harry feels like sometimes he doesn’t know who “Harry Styles” is either. They say that he’s the charming one who’s sometimes cheeky. Harry doesn’t know how this fits in with the Harry who wakes up and battles to get out of bed. Harry who doesn’t know what to say to anyone, let alone flirt with a girl, because all of the words have jumbled together and he feels like he can’t say anything at all. Or the Harry who wakes up and looks in the mirror and wants to cry because this is the person people are saying is beautiful and they don’t know anything at all. They don’t know that he hates them sometimes. They don’t know that he wishes that they would leave him alone, that he’d rather be a nobody than be the person they idolize and paste on their bedroom walls. They don’t know that he hates himself for even thinking it and he hates himself for not being the person they want him to be.

(This is one of the things in the box that he keeps in his mind that are for him only. His secrets, his and only his. He has learnt that he needs this for himself or he thinks he might actually go crazy. There must be some things that people can’t have, things that cannot be bought because if they could have it, then where else can he hide? If they knew how he felt, then what about what he feels about them knowing? No, there are some secrets that should be kept and things about him that strangers should not have access to.)

4:37am.

He takes a deep breath, feeling salt tickle inside his nose and he holds it while he blinks his eyes furiously. When he is sure that he won’t cry, he lets it out again.

4:43am, the clock blinks at him in the quiet accusing silence of the room. Harry thinks if he strains his ears, he might hear some sound of life, maybe someone snoring next door but it’s silent and he feels alone.

Harry fumbles for his phone. It takes two tries to unlock it. Harry checks his calendar and it’s a day off. He doesn’t even know how he’s forgotten except he does because days blend together. He always feels like he’s catching up. Slumping back into bed, Harry tries to think of nothing so he can sleep. He’s meeting with the rest of the boys in just under four and a half hours. If he knows Zayn though, he can probably stretch it to five. Maybe. Harry itches to turn the alarm off but he knows he shouldn’t. He needs to try. He’s eighteen and he gets to travel and sing with his best friends so he should make the most of it. He should.

But the thought of going to an amusement park, full of people and kids hyped up on sugar, people wanting to get a photo with him, to touch him – he can’t. He’s tired. The thought of talking to more people and having to be around his friends feels like it’s too much. Harry is tired thinking about it. He doesn’t want to and he can’t and today he doesn’t have to, so he’s not going to. He’s not going to make himself because he should have today to himself.

Harry curls into himself, pulling the covers up over his head like he can create a wall between himself and the world. He tries not to let the feelings of shame and failure blanket him. He’s panicking a little because he going to need to come up with another reason, another lie and it feels overwhelming. He’s halfway through texting _Sorry guys, woke up not feeling well so I’m gonna take it easy today :) have fun!_ and he feels so bad that he saves it to his drafts, the graveyard of hundreds of unsent messages, things that he has not yet had the courage to say and things that he has had the courage to withhold. He does not know yet which one this is and he doesn’t care to find out right now. 

Harry turns his phone off but tucks it under his pillow inside his little blanket fort. He doesn’t want to see it but he can’t bear the thought of being completely cut off either. He turns his face away from the clock and digs the base of his palms into his eyes, feeling the knot in his chest loosen ever so slightly. _It’s okay,_ he tells himself with every breath, _I’m okay._


End file.
